Cynthia Cathcart wrote:
<<Dancing maybe, but not marches>> writes my friend David (hi David!)I can understand the wire-strung harp being used that way with chanted exhortations. I was thinking more of 'marches' in the 18th century dance sense. One point of confusion is that early descriptions of the fighting methods of the Highlanders pretty much rule out any question of marching, as we know it, before the mid-18th c. How can there have been a 'march' when marching resembled mass fell-running, not the rythmic stride down metalled roads we are used to now?
Actually, that's not true. The brosnachadh (the incitement to battle) was a march, and was originally played with the wire strung harp, perhaps solo or perhaps as accompaniment for a chanted poem.
The Highlanders were famous for being able to outpace horsemen over their native country, and for being able to keep up a running pace (probably like fell-running, more of a louping jog).
The march in current Scottish dance music is surely rooted in the tradition of the Assemblies, and the set music which grew up with these dance-halls - very much a Hanoverian military atmosphere.
We certainly know that harpers accompanied warriors/chieftains into battle, but we don't have a very clear idea of the protocol of battle. The more I read about this, the more I get the impression of a ritual stand-off where a fairly small group of opponents might decide the day - maybe even a fixed combat between champions. For this sort of staged battle, where the risks were controlled by a recognition of the mutual need not to slaughter and main without good reason, I guess even the harpers themselves could have competed. The battles which are remembered most are often those which did not conform - which were massacres, or disasters, or where the enemy failed to understand the ritual and didn't give way (or returned some inappropriate fire, such as unfair use of arrows!).
It's a great pity we do not hear wire strung harp very often in Scotland, except from a few players, and then mainly on records ;-) I've never once seen a wire-strung harp concert advertised in the Borders.
David
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